The Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan extends south from 42nd street to meet the neighborhood of Gramercy (or Rose Hill/Curry Hill as the northern half of Gramercy is often referred to) at 29th street. Its western border is at Fifth Avenue and eastern border is at Second Avenue where it meets the distinct waterfront neighborhoods of Kips Bay and Tudor City.

For much of the twentieth century, the neighborhood was a quiet and rather formal place, with many well-off older residents. Since the late 1990s, however, many professional New Yorkers in their twenties and thirties have begun to move into the area. The raucous restaurant-and-bar scene along Third Avenue on the weekends particularly reflects this change.

Though housing in the neighborhood is slightly cheaper than in fashionable nearby parts of Manhattan, prices for apartments here rose a great deal during the boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s--as much as 500 percent in a decade.